Rankings change: As Rubio gains in the Republican primary and as Meek gains on Rubio in the general election, Florida moves ahead of North Carolina and Louisiana.
Commentary: It is worth noting that while the Senate forecast has been stuck on a Republican net gain of four for the entire month of November, it seems more likely that the situation will get worse for Democrats, rather than better. The are two main reasons for this.
First, Democratic-held seats in New York and Wisconsin are currently uncompetitive, but would become lean-Republican if the GOP scored top recruits. This is because Russ Feingold slightly trails Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, and Kirsten Gillibrand signifcantly trails Rudy Giuliani.
Second, as the economy continues to tank, there could be an across the board shift toward Republicans in these seats.
The combination of these two factors makes a ten-seat Republican pickup possible. If Republicans sweep of the races on the Senate chart, plus New York and Wisconsin, the Senate will be 50-50 for 2011-2012. And that is assuming no of the Conservadems switches parties (cough, Lieberman, cough), thereby throwing Senate control to Republicans outright.
Bad times for Democrats electorally. The entire forecast can be found in the extended entry.
(Others to keep an eye on: New York, North Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin)
Methodology:
The forecast is entirely based on polling.
For now, use the simple mean of all polls where the majority of interviews were conducted since August 25th (the last 90 days).
When available, at least two polls are used for every campaign, even if the majority of their interviews were conducted before August 15th.
As the election draws closer, restrict the timeframe for polls included in the averages. During the final six weeks of an election, use the simple mean from the last 15 days.
Campaigns where one party is ahead by 6.0 or more are considered "solid." Campaigns between 2.7 and 5.9 are considered "leans." Campaigns within 2.6 or less are considered "toss-ups." These categories are subject to refinement based on continued research into past elections.
"Solid" and "lean" seats are considered pickups, while toss-ups are 50-50 for each party. States with mixed results will be considered 50-50 until the primary election. The overall forecast is the most likely seat change based on the current forecast. This is also subject to refinement.
Do not include Zogby Interactive polls and Columbus Dispatch polls, due to their horrendous past performance and questionable methodologies.
Do not include Strategic Vision polls, as it is starting to seem likely those are not real polls.
Include campaign-funded polls. Further, if there is more than one poll from a single organization, include all of them.
The basic idea is to cram as many polls with sound methodologies into the averages as possible, and weight them evenly to include more overall data in the sample. Because voter preferences don't really change that much in high-profile elections, I thought this method might produce a more accurate result through logic of regression to the mean. It seems to work pretty well, as my research has shown so far.
This is different from my 2006 and 2008 methodology in that it includes polls from 15 days out from an election, instead of only 8. Further, campaign funded polls, and multiple polls from a single polling firm, are now included. All of these changes were made to include more polls in the averages, since my previous methodology was about 10-20% less accurate than Pollster.com and fivethrityeight.com. Since they had already raised the bar so high, and since they will probably improve their methodologies for 2010 even more, it was time for Open Left to step it up.
Notes:
*= Faces primary, but heavy favorite
**= Not an announced candidate at this time
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